CENTRE FOR HIV/AIDS SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

Supported by Sida/SAREC (Department for Research Cooperation), Duration: 3 years, Geographical coverage: Kenya, Uganda

The incidence rates of HIV infection are highest in the 15-19 age group with the majority of infections being girls, probably as a result of specific socio-economic contexts, in particular gender differences in the socialization of young people into sexuality and problems of communication about sexuality and sexual negotiations.

Though the knowledge of how to prevent HIV transmission exists, research results are seldom implemented in HIV prevention and care programmes. The key challenge for the future is therefore to establish strong links between research, policy and implementation.

A main factor in research on policy is that of compiling and comparing lessons learned by countries and target groups that have been relatively successful in containing the epidemic and/or mitigating its effects and the scaling up of best practices and innovative interventions at national level. This requires political and government commitment.

The goal of this program is to coordinate systematic participatory intervention and operations research that provide policy options for addressing and mitigating the adverse effects of HIV/AIDS among the youth by developing fruitful dialogue and collaboration with governmental institutions and policy makers.

The broad objectives are to:

I. Evaluate the current status of policies and programs on HIV/AIDS and youth in order to encourage planners, policy-makers and national leaders to recognize the importance of the youth issue and to formulate supportive HIV/AIDS policies and programs to improve the provision of services to African youth.

II. Document best practices and innovative interventions on youth and HIV/Aids with a view to scaling up best practices at the national level

III. Enhancing the use of research in influencing policy support by translating research results on the youth into policy and pragmatic actions for use by policy makers and implementers.

IV. Conduct participatory intervention research showing cost effectiveness, cost benefit and sustainability of programmes in identified priority youth issues, which convince policy makers about the appropriateness of the suggested programmes.

The program will be based in Uganda and Kenya.

Strategies and plans for informing national policy makers and implementers and engaging in national and regional HIV/AIDS action plans include, formation of national research committees with representatives from the government and non-governmental organizations, the academia (university and research institutions), use of Ambassadors and health desk officers to give visibility to the program, individual visits to the National Aids Control Council (NACC), Permanent Secretaries in the relevant ministries and Vice chancellors of the Universities, publicizing the program through the mass media, and round table discussions.

Request for proposals will be made through the mass media, Internet and various social science networks. The process of selecting the research proposals will involve, ranking of national proposals by national research committees and peer reviewing of ranked national proposals by internationally renowned scientists.

A one-day meeting will be held in each country with the stakeholders and policy implementers where the research findings will be presented and strategies for scaling up, supporting and coordinating the intervention research will be discussed.

Sharing of information will be through regional and national scientific conferences, the mass media, project briefs, round table discussions, and a list server.